IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecj/ac2002/129.html

Are Preferential trade Agreements with Non-trade Objectives a Stumbling Block for Multilateral Liberalization?

Author

Listed:
  • Lim“o, Nuno

    (University of Maryland)

Abstract

Increasingly, in regional agreements, large economies offer lower trade barriers in exchange for cooperation in environmental, intellectual property and other issues by small economies. What is the effect of such agreements on multilateral trade liberalization? We show that, even in the absence of trade creation or diversion, regional agreements increase the cost of multilateral tariff reductions. Such reductions decrease the threat large countries can use in regional agreements causing a loss in regional bargaining power. By explicitly modeling the interaction between regional and multilateral negotiations we show that this result is due to the WTO's most-favorite nation rules and analyze the welfare effects of strengthening and weakening them. Moreover, we show that "deepening" duty-free regional agreements requires increases in multilateral tariffs.

Suggested Citation

  • Lim“o, Nuno, 2002. "Are Preferential trade Agreements with Non-trade Objectives a Stumbling Block for Multilateral Liberalization?," Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2002 129, Royal Economic Society.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecj:ac2002:129
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repec.org/res2002/Limao.pdf
    File Function: full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nuno Limão & Marcelo Olarreaga, 2018. "Trade Preferences to Small Developing Countries and the Welfare Costs of Lost Multilateral Liberalization," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Policy Externalities and International Trade Agreements, chapter 15, pages 403-426, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    2. Kyle Handley & Nuno Limão, 2018. "Trade and Investment under Policy Uncertainty: Theory and Firm Evidence," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Policy Externalities and International Trade Agreements, chapter 4, pages 89-122, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    3. repec:ilo:ilowps:469183 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Ornelas, Emanuel, 2008. "Feasible multilateralism and the effects of regionalism," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 202-224, January.
    5. Nuno Limão, 2018. "Trade policy, cross-border externalities and lobbies: do linked agreements enforce more cooperative outcomes?," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Policy Externalities and International Trade Agreements, chapter 9, pages 257-281, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. Bagwell, Kyle & Staiger, Robert W., 2010. "Backward stealing and forward manipulation in the WTO," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 49-62, September.
    7. Renliang Liu & Thanasis Stengos & Yiguo Sun, 2024. "Spatial spillovers in trade agreement memberships: Does institutional proximity matter?," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 1398-1433, August.
    8. Limão, Nuno, 2005. "Preferential Trade Agreements as Stumbling Blocks for Multilateral Trade Liberalization: Evidence for the US," CEPR Discussion Papers 4884, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Ketterer, Tobias D. & Bernhofen, Daniel & Milner, Chris, 2014. "Preferences, rent destruction and multilateral liberalization: The building block effect of CUSFTA," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 63-77.
    10. Baybars Karacaovali & Nuno Limão, 2018. "The clash of liberalizations: Preferential vs. multilateral trade liberalization in the European Union," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Policy Externalities and International Trade Agreements, chapter 14, pages 373-401, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    11. Karacaovali, Baybars & Limao, Nuno, 2005. "The clash of liberalizations : preferential versus multilateral trade liberalization in the European Union," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3493, The World Bank.
    12. Nuno Limão & Kamal Saggi, 2018. "Tariff retaliation versus financial compensation in the enforcement of international trade agreements," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Policy Externalities and International Trade Agreements, chapter 12, pages 337-349, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    13. Bernhard Herz & Marco Wagner, 2010. "Multilateralism versus Regionalism!?," Working Papers 089, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    14. Emanuel Ornelas, 2012. "Preferential Trade Agreements and the Labor Market," CEP Discussion Papers dp1117, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    15. Hideo Konishi & Minoru Nakada & Akihisa Shibata, 2024. "Free trade agreements with environmental provisions between asymmetric countries: transfer of clean technology and enforcement," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 26(1), pages 1-30, January.
    16. Bown, Chad P., 2014. "Trade policy instruments over time," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6757, The World Bank.
    17. Ludema, Rodney D. & Mayda, Anna Maria, 2009. "Do countries free ride on MFN?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 137-150, April.
    18. Kilolo, Jean-Marc Malambwe, 2013. "Country size, trade liberalization and transfers," MPRA Paper 47996, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Nuno Limão, 2018. "Preferential Trade Agreements as Stumbling Blocks for Multilateral Trade Liberalization: Evidence for the United States," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Policy Externalities and International Trade Agreements, chapter 13, pages 353-371, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F13 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ecj:ac2002:129. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/resssea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.